Modern Korea All That Matters

Download or read book Modern Korea: All That Matters written by Andrew Salmon and published by Hodder & Stoughton. This book was released on 2014-08-29 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In no nation on earth has history accelerated with such speed as in Korea. A medieval dynasty at the end of the 19th century, it underwent a traumatic colonization, then, in its hour of liberation was divided by the great powers at the end of World War II. Devastated by a fratricidal war, the peninsula has remained divided ever since. South Korea is the greatest national success story of the 20th century. From the ashes of war, it transformed itself, against the odds - and against much advice - into an industrial powerhouse and thriving democracy. Now a high-tech wonderland, it is undergoing social and cultural transformations that add further layers to its dynamic DNA. North Korea is an economic, social and political disaster, successful only at totalitarianism. Having transmogrified from a blood-and-iron communist dictatorship into a bizarre, neo-fascist monarchy, it is a black hole at the heart of Asia. Engulfed by paranoia, the regime presides over a malnourished populace, a 1.1 million man army and a nuclear arsenal. From nuclear missiles to Samsung smartphones; from assassins to salarymen; from Kim Il-sung to Psy; this is the extraordinary story of the flashpoint peninsula that dominates talk in boardrooms and newsrooms. Korea, the author argues, provides two stark benchmarks for national development: Epic success and catastrophic failure. And its final chapter has yet to be written.

Download or read book A Concise History of Modern Korea written by Michael J. Seth and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive and balanced history of modern Korea explores the social, economic, and political issues it has faced since being catapulted into the wider world at the end of the nineteenth century. Placing this formerly insular society in a global context, Michael J. Seth describes how this ancient, culturally and ethnically homogeneous society first fell victim to Japanese imperialist expansionism, and then was arbitrarily divided in half after World War II. Seth traces the postwar paths of the two Koreas with different political and social systems and different geopolitical orientations as they evolved into sharply contrasting societies. South Korea, after an unpromising start, became one of the few postcolonial developing states to enter the ranks of the first world, with a globally competitive economy, a democratic political system, and a cosmopolitan and dynamic culture. By contrast, North Korea became one of the world's most totalitarian and isolated societies, a nuclear power with an impoverished and famine-stricken population. Considering the radically different and historically unprecedented trajectories of the two Koreas, Seth assesses the insights they offer for understanding not only modern Korea but the broader perspective of world history."

Download or read book Park Chung Hee and Modern Korea written by Carter J. Eckert and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-07 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conclusion -- Notes -- Korean MMA Cadets by Class -- Glossary of Names and Terms -- Bibliography -- Sources and Acknowledgments -- Index

Download or read book The Dawn of Modern Korea written by Andreĭ Nikolaevich Lanʹkov and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The 20th century was a time of great changes for any country, but in Korea these changes were especially dramatic. In 1960, it was one of the world's poorest countries. By 2000 it transformed itself into one of the world's largest economies. This astonishing transformation completely changed Koreans' daily life as well. This book describes how small but essential things have changes over the last century, and how new technology and ideas arrived in Korea for the first time. Within the last century photographs, newspapers, movies, restaurants, electric lights, cars (as well as accidents caused by them), subways, and so many other things appeared in Korea. In this book, the author details how these "modern things" changed the centuries-old ways of Korean life." -- BACK COVER.

Download or read book The Great Enterprise written by Henry Em and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-25 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Great Enterprise, Henry H. Em examines how the project of national sovereignty shaped the work of Korean historians and their representations of Korea's past. The goal of Korea attaining validity and equal standing among sovereign nations, Em shows, was foundational to modern Korean politics in that it served a pedagogical function for Japanese and Western imperialisms, as well as for Korean nationalism. Sovereignty thus functioned as police power and political power in shaping Korea's modernity, including anticolonial and postcolonial movements toward a radically democratic politics. Surveying historical works written over the course of the twentieth century, Em elucidates the influence of Christian missionaries, as well as the role that Japan's colonial policy played in determining the narrative framework for defining Korea's national past. Em goes on to analyze postcolonial works in which South Korean historians promoted national narratives appropriate for South Korea's place in the U.S.-led Cold War system. Throughout, Em highlights equal sovereignty's creative and productive potential to generate oppositional subjectivities and vital political alternatives.

Download or read book A New History of Korea written by Ki-baik Lee and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1988-03-15 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first English-language history of Korea to appear in more than a decade, this translation offers Western readers a distillation of the latest and best scholarship on Korean history and culture from the earliest times to the student revolution of 1960. The most widely read and respected general history, A New History of Korea (Han’guksa sillon) was first published in 1961 and has undergone two major revisions and updatings. Translated twice into Japanese and currently being translated into Chinese as well, Ki-baik Lee’s work presents a new periodization of his country’s history, based on a fresh analysis of the changing composition of the leadership elite. The book is noteworthy, too, for its full and integrated discussion of major currents in Korea’s cultural history. The translation, three years in preparation, has been done by specialists in the field.

Download or read book Christ and Caesar in Modern Korea written by Wi Jo Kang and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1997-03-06 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A well-documented work on the history of modern Korea focusing on the history of Christianity in relation to politics.